A fair number of these campaigns were never real to begin with. They're shams — or sham-paigns, if you will — designed to snag some free press during the slow months and elevate the would-be candidate's profile.

Shampaigns have become increasingly popular and will continue to do so. As viral marketing becomes mainstream, we will see more and more shampaigns as this is a technique that creates talk and can successfully carries consumers from one media to another, for example a television commercial to a website.

Now you can also hit the "shampaign trail" by sending in your own mock-ups of the likely presidential candidates.